Imposter Syndrome - the Plague of High Achievers
It can happen to anyone -- even a housewife working from home
Imagine this scenario: you’ve accomplished more in the past year than most people do in a decade or more. You’ve finally begun to reap the rewards of your persistence and dedication. Others in your field see you as one of the best around at what you do. You work hard and refuse to settle into the humdrum and safety of mediocrity. You’re a high achiever, but there’s a problem.
Can’t shake feeling like a fraud?
I’m a poser and, soon, everyone will know it. You can’t seem to shake the nagging feeling that others will ‘find you out’ and realize that you’ve ‘faked it’ the whole time – that you fooled them into thinking you had more talent and skill than you actually have. These feelings of self-doubt and incompetence, despite evidence to the contrary, represent what psychologists call imposter syndrome.
Imposter syndrome -- named in 1978 by clinical psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes -- refers to a phenomenon that commonly plagues successful people as they reach new milestones in their careers.
Imposter syndrome makes you feel as if you don’t deserve the success you’ve achieved. You may harbor a guilty suspicion that you somehow tricked others into thinking you have a higher level of competence than you actually do.
Clueless - it can happen to anyone
One day people will realize that I’m actually clueless. Feeling clueless may leave you worried that people will find out you don’t know nearly as much as your success implies. If this makes you feel like an imposter, you’re not alone. The fear of failure, or of faking others out, occurs in both men and women and at every level of success.
Whether you just landed your first client, or have worked for years to get to the top, this nagging syndrome may start to attack your confidence and personal power. If you leave the negativity of this false self-talk unchecked, it will permeate everything you do and that’s bad for business, for family, for everybody.
When you start to notice the presence of this killjoy in your daily thoughts about your success, just remember – everybody is clueless sometimes. —→
The incredibly inspiring and successful Seth Godin wrote about feeling like a fraud in his book, The Icarus Deception. Really? After his multiple best sellers and mega-influence, he still feels this way? Yes, he says he does. Whatever you think about Godin, it’s surprising (to me, at least) that he suffers from imposter syndrome.
A little self-doubt never hurt anyone
My self-doubt pushes me to accomplish more. Research conducted at Purdue University showed that women who scored high on anxiety scales and imposter feelings also voiced an intense desire to prove themselves as competent. This drive caused them to compete even harder, leading to bigger and better achievements.
And, men suffer from imposter syndrome just as often, or more, than women, according to the same study linked above, it’s just that they don’t typically voice it to others. Many high achieving men struggle with feelings of incompetence and mediocrity, but since most men are lower on the ‘agreeableness’ scale, according to Jordan B. Peterson, they are better and overcoming this and other setbacks to success:
For me, this manifested as working hard to be the very best wife, mother, and friend I could be. Then, when I began writing and editing professionally from home, my desire to serve my clients to the best of my ability grew out of my success as a wife and mother. Nothing beats my primary ‘career’ (aka vocation) of wife and mother, but I do love my work as a content editor and writer as well. I’ve still got lots to learn and I always will, but overcoming the hurdles at the beginning gave me some confidence that the best is yet to come.
Further, a little self-doubt attenuates the natural human tendency toward self-servitude and superiority over others.
Numerous studies show that most people do not judge their own abilities and performances accurately – either over- or understating performance outcome predictions. A bit of internal conflict about personal ability at various points of a person’s rise to success may allow for better decision making and a stronger drive to innovate and achieve.
It’s not a stroke of luck — own your success
Success doesn’t come from luck. Stop doubting your value. Even though some level of self-doubt can drive you to persist in achieving your goals, too much is definitely bad. You need to own your part in your successes. High achievers tend to focus on what they still need to accomplish rather than what they’ve already done. It’s important to keep what you haven’t done on the radar, of course; but you must also take responsibility for your achievements.
Adjust your thinking patterns and perceptions of your successes to more closely mirror reality. Look at certain career and personal milestones that objectively showcase your accomplishments and internalize the message these markers present to the outside world.
Each personal and professional victory, no matter how large or small, acts as significant external proof of your competence. To quell the voices that mock these successes as fakery, you must internalize these proofs. This takes practice and requires that your perception have a firm basis in reality. Acknowledge your mistakes and setbacks, but don’t allow these to set the theme of your life.
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Yes, great points. I experience that in my career all the time, and it there's a type of person who smells blood in the water to take advantage of us.
On the other side of the coin, there are definitely people (Jordan Peterson arguably) who occupy an undeserved position in our society. I'm thinking of the countless sycophantic careerists at the NIH, or the SEC, or the FBI, DOD, and on and on and on. Just as there are people like yourself who should not question their value, there are just as many people who are indeed fraudsters. These people are racked by fear...fear of losing their job, income, social status, and sense of worth. Some of them might hold an inexplicably high position because of some ridiculous secret society, complete with secret handshakes and ack-acadac door passwords.
In short, it's mandatory that people like us hold our heads high, if only for the purpose of stopping the current pandemic of grifter gaslighting.
Yep. I am a highly capable woman plagued by self doubt. I always have been. I have always wanted to be a writer and this has let me stick my toe in the water. I do love it. At first I wouldn't allow comments on my articles because I was so afraid of people starting word battles. I was used to FB and the lashing I would take when I would make a comment on things. People are great on here. Like-minded mostly. Trolls are easy to spot. In fact, today I am going back through and changing a few Stacks to allow comments. I have so wanted to inflate my resume, but seriously. Why? I am enough. And my people think so...and love me. In the end that is all that really matters. God has me and I know that.